Various Artists DJ-Kicks: Four Tet

• Words: Rob Geary
• Label: !K7
• XLR8R Rating: /10

If Kieran Hebden's music as Four Tet is a crystal-hard, beautiful, transparent, yet unyielding-his addition to the long-running DJ-Kicks series is a beam of light shot through that crystal and scattered into the colors of the rainbow. Put the micro-electro of Akufen, the lopsided boom of Madvillain, the classic soul of Curtis Mayfield, and the bent harmonies of Animal Collective back together again and you'd have something approaching Four Tet‘s idyllic bangers. Hebden finds time to resurrect Group Home (Google 'em) and the decade-old (yet relevant as ever) Autechre protest "Flutter" amid this noisy, lovely, head-spinning set.